Strawberries aren't supposed to frown
by Meiwaku
Summary: Ichigo has been frowning ever since the return from Soul Society. What makes him stop? [shounen ai]
1. Prologue

Disclamer: I don't own Bleach, but it has made me obsessed. I now obsess over two things; Bleach and Johnny Depp. Anyway, I don't own the characters, I just like to have fun with them.

AN: Well, here I am. After 4+ years of lurking I have finally written a fanfic. Not much is written of it still, but more is to come. Sarah, you said you wanted to read this, so here you have it. A small favour for letting me read yours before you have the chappies done . Hope you like. Here you have it; Tada! The prologue to my new story;

**Strawberries aren't supposed to frown.**

Some days it seemed that the frown on Kurosaki Ichigos face was permanent. Kurosaki Yuzu, Ichigo's little sister, had a theory where their dad, Isshin, once had told Ichigo that his face would stick like that if he frowned too much, and that Ichigo, upon hearing that, had actually held that frown for so long that his face really stuck like that, just to spite his dad.

This day, was like all the others. Ichigo had been on a frown-fest for a while now, and nothing seemed to succeed in making him at least stop frowning for a sec. Not even Inues antics got the tiniest smile out of him. He had been this way since they left Soul Society. Chad and Orihime hade come to the conclusion that Ichigo missed Rukia. Or that he at least missed something that only was in Soul Society.

Two weeks of constant frowning on Ichigos side, had made Inue and Chad stop trying to get him to smile.

One day, in the middle of math-class, a loud, angry voice started shouting outside.

"Kurosaki Ichigo! I know you're in there, so just come out and face me as a man!"

Four people in the classroom recognized the voice. Those four were, of course, Ichigo, Ishida, Inue and Sado. How could you forget the deep voice of Abarai Renji, the vice-captain of division 6? The other people in class just wondered who the freaky-looting, hippie-dressed guy on the schoolyard was. More interesting and importantly, he seemed to know Kurosaki-kun.

Ichigo, on realizing that is was, in fact, really Renji who stood down there, yelling for him, stopped frowning. Instead his face showed both embarrassedment and anger. The whole class had heard Renji yelling for him. Ichigo stood from his chair so fast that it fell backwards, and uttered a practically non-existant "sumimasen" before he raced out of the classroom.

Renji was still yelling, and attrackting a crowd in all the windows of the school, when Ichigo got out of the schoolbuilding and basically tackled Renji, dragging him into a small collection on trees and bushes.

"God dammit, Renji!" Ichigo was close to yelling. "Just what do you think you are doing by coming here and starting to yell my name like som fuckiing lunatic or something?"

"Ma, I had to get your attention somehow, right?" Renji answered lazily, looking Ichigo straight in the eye, from where he sat on the ground where Ichigo had dropped him.

"How can you be so calm!" Renjis camlness was so unlike him that it annoyed Ichigo. It was as if the past two weeks stress of returning from Soul Society and going back to school hade finally manifested in Ichigo in some other way than just frowning. He was red-hot-mad.

"What are you doing here anyway, Renji?", Ichigo asked, without bothering to wait for an answer to his last question.

"Well, since Rukia doesn't have her powers back just yet, I was sent to protect Karakura town, because somepeople," here Renji pointedly looked at Ichigo, "don't know how to mask their reiatsu, thus becoming large flashing neon-signs to hungry Hollows in for a tasy treat. Someone has to protect the people in this town after all." Renji concluded.

"You?" Ichigo asked. "You have been sent here to replace Rukia? Even though you're a vice-captain? You've been demoted!" After coming to this conclusion Ichigo started laughing, suddenly filled with glee.

"No, it's not like that," Renji hurried to get something out of his mouth, so that he wouldn't look like a total fool, just standing there, letting a simple "substitute shinigami" laugh at him, the vice-captain of the 6th division!

"Someone with power had to come here, because you and you band of ryokas are leaking out massive amounts of reiatsu, and you are attracting more powerful Hollows here, yeah, thats how it is!" Renji almost sounded as if he was trying to convince himself that his explanation really was true.

Ichigo finally calmed down and said; "well, no matter why you are here, it is good to have another shinigami around. After being around a whole lot of shinigamis to suddenly being the only one... It gets kind of lonely, you know?"

This took Renji by surprise. Kurosaki had never said anything remotely like that to him before. Ichigo had sounded... nice?

"So tell med Renji, why did you feel the need to come to my school, and yell me out of class?" Ichigo asked, curiosity in his voice.

"Well... I went to Urahara to get my gigai and I asked him where you were, just, y'know, where to go if a Hollow made an appearance... and then... y'know... I got... kinda... bored." Renji finished his explanation.

"You yelled me out of class just because you were bored?" Ichigo sounded incredulus, like he just couldn't believe it.

"Well... yeah..."

"O...kay." Ichigo said. "I think you need to do something with your spare time, 'cuz you can't come and yell me out of class everytime you get bored," Ichigo concluded. "We have to get you a job. What can you do?"

"You mean besides being a shinigami? I think I still know how to steal stuff, but I don't think thats legal, or considered a job here, Kurosaki."

"Naw, ya think?" tha sarcasm was almost dripping off of Ichigos voice. "If stealing is the only thing you can do, I guess you can take the empty space in my class. Now go and do something else... Patroll town or something. I have to get back to class. Ja!" With that Ichigo turned 180° and ran back to the school, leaving Renji standing with a look of total shock on his face.

"But... I don't wanna go back to school..." Renji protested weakly into thin air.

* * *


	2. Chappy 1

Disclaimer: Me no own, you no sue. Deal?

AN: After a very annoying weekend with no internet, the connection is finally up again. Then again, if I had had internet, I probably wouldn't have typed this up... so you can look at it any way you want. Sarah, this is for you. Hope you get well soon, so that we can hang out again. Anyhow; here's what became known as the first chapter of** Strawberries Aren't Supposed to Frown, **now shortened to SAStF. Enjoy!

**SAStF**

**Chapter 1;**

**Explanations, an ordinary afternoon, and thoughts.**

When Ichigo came back to class after his encounter with Renji, everybody stared at him. The class wanted to know who the hippie-guy was and how he knew Kurosaki-kun. Well, everyone besides Inue, Ishida and Sado, because they already knew all the class wanted to know.

Lunch was something akin to the Spanish Inquisition for Ichigo. Everyone talked to him, tried to get him to speak about the stranger. This caused Ichigo to frown even more than usual, as he tried to ignore them all, but blocking out all those voices weren't easy. Sado came to the rescue as he silently and forcefully dragged Ichigo out of the classroom, backed up by Ishida and Inue, who were fending off those who tried to follow them. They headed to the roof, their usual lunch-space.

Well up on the roof another kind of inquisition followed. A bright and bubbly one. Led, of course, by Inue Orihime, the queen of bright and bubbly. As Inue's inborn curiosity took her over, she obviously did not see the look on Ichigos face. If you had, you would have thought of the proverb "curiosity killed the cat". If the look on Ichigos face was anything to go by, death was soon to happen. His frown had deepened even more. Sado, though, had apparently seen the look on his face, and calmed Inue down by laying one of his hands on Orihimes shoulder.

"What did he want?"

You could always count on Sado to be as short-worded as possible.

"He was bored."

"He was bored?" Ishida sounded like he couldn't believe it. "But what did he want?"

"Well, mostly I think he wanted to annoy me, but he said that he is Rukia's replacement, claiming that the four of us attract too many powerful Hollows for me to handle by myself," Ichigo said. "So they sent Renji to help me out."

"But… why did he come to our school?"

"He was bored. He got his gigai from Urahara-san, got bored and went to find me," Ichigo answered Ishidas question.

"And because I don't want him to come and drag me out of class more than the coming Hollows will, we had to find something for him to do. So he is coming to school with us, starting tomorrow."

The next day, Ichigo woke up with a slight nervous feeling in his stomach. That was probably 'cause he figured that Renji would embarrass him when he got to school.

Well in the classroom he found that Renji was already there, calmly sitting in his seat, the previously empty one next to Ichigo.

As more people came into the room, most not recognizing the guy from the day before, but some glancing curiously at him, not knowing what to make of him, since he now wore their school uniform. When Ishida, Orihime and Sado came in, they didn't know how to behave, but Renji calmly solved that with a "Long time, no see". That way their classmates would assume that he was just some transfer they had met during the summer.

Ichigo spent his day in school watching. Watching Renji, of course. It was actually really entertaining to see Renji start to squirm halfway through their second class.

When the school day was over, the gang trooped out of the room together.

'Phew, finally the torture is over,' though Renji.

"Well, I don't know how you stand doing this day in and day out. I would've killed myself if I were you," Renji stated to the group on their way off the school grounds.

"Then you're lucky not to be us, because a dead Abarai-kun would be a bad Abarai-kun," Inue said. "And we don't want a bad Abarai-kun."

"We still up for that video tonight?" Ichigo asked. They had figured that they had to celebrate Renjis arrival in some way (at least, Inue had), so they had decided to watch a movie. They had all agreed that it would be best to watch it at Inues apartment, as Ishida didn't have a VCR, Ichigos father would be unbearable, Sado claimed that he didn't have space enough for the four of them and Renji figured that Urahara wouldn't appreciate it if he dragged them to his place.

"Sure."

"Un."

"Hai!"

Sado just nodded, knowing that those he now considered real friends, didn't expect him to talk all the time, just the way he liked it.

Ichigos frown had ceased during school, and he had simply looked blank, and sometimes moderately interested. This was an improvement, at least for Inue, who did not like Ichigos frown. But the minute he separated from the others in his group of friends, his frown came back full force. He just had so many things on his mind these days… There was a pressure in the back of his mind, that something in his life wasn't right, that something was missing. That feeling made him frown the most, but it went away when he hung out with Renji, Inue, Ishida and Sado. Mostly any way.

Later that afternoon, he was surprised by a, once again, yelling Renji. This time he was outside his house.

'Is his yelling ever going to stop?' thought Ichigo to himself.

"Hey, dumbass, are you ever going to stop with the fucking yelling?" Ichigo screamed, not even bothering to move from his desk, knowing that his scream would have been audible outside the house.

"Yeah," he soon heard Renji scream back. "As soon as you come out and show me the way to Inues place!"

This time, Ichigo even bothered to go and sit on his bed and lean out the window, so that he wouldn't have to shout.

"It's not time to go yet, baka. Why don't you come in and wait with me? Heck, you could eat here if you want. I'm sure my sisters won't mind."

This made Renji feel… welcomed. Even though it was Kurosaki that invited him to dinner, he'd rather eat with his "kind-of"-friend rather than eat with Urahara-san and be called "free-loader-dono" again.

"Um… sure, if it's alright with your family."

"Okay, I'll come and open the door, just wait there."

Renji was still there when Ichigo came and opened the door. As he let Renji in and started to walk back to his room, he shouted in the direction of the kitchen;

"Oi, a friend of mine is staying for dinner, that alright?"

"Hai!" came his sisters voices back in union.

'Hn, cute,' thought Renji. He had never had siblings, unless you counted Rukia, of course, who was as close as a sister to him.

"C'mon Renji, this way."

"Hai."

Just as Renji stepped into Ichigos room, he stopped and took a look around. 'So this is how he lives,' he thought.

"Like it?"

"Yeah."

And Renji actually really did like it. Not that he knew Ichigo very well (he secretly wanted to get to know him better) but what little he knew about him seemed to fit, here in this room.

"So…" Ichigo sat down at his desk as Renji sat on the edge of Ichigos bed.

There was an uncomfortable silence that stretched over several minutes before Ichigo asked;

"How was things in Soul Society when you left?"

"Um… hectic and worried I guess. I mean pretty much everyone is shocked over what happened with Aizen, y'know? And now they have to choose three new captains too… and most things are so confusing that only a few people know how to handle it all. It's nice to be away from the rookie shinigamis running around like headless chickens, though, I'll tell you that."

"That I can totally understand… How was Rukia?"

"Like she always is. She isn't really one for showing emotions if she doesn't want to, and when I left she was mostly trying to make herself useful, plus she was keeping captain Kuchiki company, 'cuz captain Unohana won't let him out of bed yet, though he says that he is fine. I think he really is fine, but that Unohana just wants to mess with him, she wants to show him who has the power."

"Heh, that seems like her. She gets kind of control-freaky when it comes to her turf, huh?"

They fell quiet, both deep in their own thoughts. Suddenly they both gave a start at the massive, foul-feeling force that bombarded their senses.

"What the fuck was that!" Ichigo exclaimed, at the same time as the "substitute-shinigami"-badge started to glow.

"Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but it felt like a Hollow," Renji said back sarcastically.

"I know that, teme, it was a rhetorical question!"

"I know it was a rhetorical question, dumbass, I'm not stupid!"

Ichigo didn't bother to give an answer to that since he was climbing out of his body to go into "shinigami-mode".

"Hurry up, Renji. Get out of your gigai, we have to find this one before someone gets hurt!"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm trying can't you see?"

Ichigo could see, and it was actually quite an amusing sight.

When Renji had finally gotten out of his gigai (after much wriggles and other trouble) they jumped out of Ichigos open window and ran in the direction of the Hollow.


	3. Chappy 2

**AN: **Okay, it's finally here. Chappy two of SAStF. I finally got of my lazy ass and typed it up. The lateness of this chapter also depended on a thing called life. It sucks but, hey, what can you do when you teachers bombard you with homework and tests to study for? Nothing much, other than study your ass of. Anyway, thanks to everyone who's reveiwed, I find the motivation to write when I know that someone reads my story! So if you like, and want chapters more often, send a review to me. It doesn't have to be a long one, just something that makes me aware that someone reads this story. Introducing chappy 2:

**SAStF**

**Chapter II – The HUGDH and aftermath.**

The Hollows huge outlet of power led them to a park near the school. Ishida and Sado were already there, trying to handle it, but they weren't doing very well. Just as Ichigo and Renji ran through the gates to the park they saw Orihime racing in on the playground from the other side of the park.

Both Ichigo and Renji realized that it would take much power to take out this one, even though it wasn't a Menos Grande. They stopped for a sec and looked at each other, before they charged at the Hollow at the same time, yelling "Bankai!".

This drew the Hollows attention from Sado and Ishida to Renji and Ichigo.

"Mmm… you smell tasty… let me eat your tasty souls!" the Hollow growled in its semi-human voice.

"Nope, we're not on the menu today! Sorry pal!" Ichigo said just as he jumped into the air to bring his sword down on the Hollows mask and hopefully crack it.

Of course, with Ichigos luck, that wasn't what happened. The mask didn't crack, in fact, Ichigos zanpaktou didn't even touch the Hollow. It is amazing that so huge creatures (if you can call Hollows that) can move so fecking fast.

This was what Renji secretly classified as HUGDH, of just HH for short. It stands for Huge Ugly God Damn Hollow, Huge Hollow is the more neutral classification. Actually the swearwords between "Huge" and "Hollow" changed depending on Renjis mood at the moment. If Renji was really mad, he would just stick more curse-words in there. Right now, though, HUDGH would suffice, because the Hollow in itself was proving more difficult than ordinary.

"Oi, Ichigo! Watch out!"

The Hollow had launched an attack on Ichigo when he had tried to move for a better position to strike again. Ichigo, however, didn't have much time to react, because even with Renjis warning the Hollow came in too fast, and all Ichigo could do was to look at the Hollows claw-like hands as it came sweeping towards him.

"Oh, shit."

That was all Ichigo had time to utter before he was swept of his feet and slammed into a nearby house wall.

"Kurosaki-kun!"

Orihime ran for Ichigo where he lay unmoving on the ground. At the same time a red-hot anger started burning inside Renji.

"Aaah!" he screamed as he attacked the Hollow that had started to move in on Inue and Ichigo. The Hollow, though, had been so concentrated on the reiatsu of Ichigo and Inue, so it didn't notice Renji until the last second. Zabimaru cracked the Hollows mask, but Renjis left arm got a whack from one of the Hollows claw-like hand as it in desperation tried to defend itself. It didn't succeed.

As soon as Renji was upright again, the whack had unbalanced him a bit, he was running for Ichigo. Ishida, Sado and Inue was kneeling beside Ichigo, trying to find out what was wrong with him.

"How is he?"

"Well, he hit his head, his left arm looks kind of funny and he seems to have broken a couple of ribs. Listen, we should really get him to his dad. Inue can't really do much for broken bones that haven't been set. There's a chance that they'd heal wrong…" Ishida answered, keeping a cool head, but with a worried expression on his face. He also kept trying to push his glasses further up his nose, even though he would push them into his head if they'd go further up.

"Then what are we waiting for? Chad, could you lift him? I don't think that my arm can handle it right now," Renji said.

"Un."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When they arrived at Ichigos house, Renji jumped up through the window and got his gigai and Ichigos body. They knocked on the door when they had gotten Ichigo back into his body. The bloody wound on Ichigos head was not a pretty sight.

"Hai! What can we… d… Ichigo!" Yuzu was really shocked to see Ichigos closest friends standing there, with her brother unconscious in Chads arms.

"Um… there was an accident… Ichigo's really hurt! Get your dad! Hurry Yuzu-chan!" Inue ordered quickly to keep Yuzu from asking questions.

"Dad! Hurry, Ichigo's hurt!" Yuzu just turned around to shout for Isshin.

"Come in! Hurry!" she turned back to the group on the doorstep.

Karin came to the door having heard the commotion.

"What happened!" she exclaimed.

"Well…" Ishida started, "there kind of was an accident and Ichigo got really hurt."

Chad had already pushed his way through to that he would be able to get Ichigo to the treatment room as quick as possible.

When Isshin appeared he seemed to be worried, but also strictly professional, as if he, right now, wouldn't care or try to think about the fact that it was his own son he was treating. No matter how much he and Ichigo fought, Ichigo was, through it all, his one, and only, son. He was sure that he would have acted the same if it had been Yuzu or Karin that had been hurt.

When Chad had put Ichigo down on the hospital bed Isshin had showed him to he got strict orders to get out of the room. Isshin also told him that he was not to be disturbed, so everyone was to keep out of the treatment room.

While Isshin took care of Ichigo, Yuzu patched up Renjis arm. Some stitches had to be put in, but Renji took it all in stride. Right now he couldn't concentrate on anything but worrying about Ichigo. That was, of course, what everyone in their small group of people was doing right now, but… Renji felt guilty somehow.

'I should have been able to stop that hollow easily, but no, I just had to let Ichigo have a go at it first. Kuso! Why am I such a baka?' Renji thought.

"Abarai-kun? Are you alright now?" Inue inquired.

"Yeah, I'll be fine. I heal fast. Don't worry about me."

Everyone in the room fell quiet, as they all sank deeper into the swamp of worry for Ichigo. Just when they were about to go crazy from Renjis pacing Isshin came out of the room where he had treated Ichigo.

"How is he?" everyone asked as one.

"He's unconscious right now, but he'll pull through. He's a tough boy."

"How bad was his injuries, dad?" Yuzu was really worried and you could tell that Karin was too. She hadn't said anything since they had showed up at the front door.

"Well, his left shoulder was dislocated, but I fixed that. His arm will have to be in a sling for about six weeks, though, and he shouldn't be up and about in at least two. His ribs'll be troubling him too, but I've fixed those to the best of my ability. What worries me most is his head. There is a small chance that he might not wake up…" While saying all of this Isshin sounded very cold. Like he was trying to distance himself from it all, as if it wasn't truly happening.

"You kid should go home. He probably won't wake up tonight, but if he does, I'll call you alright? I know that all of you are good friends of my son."

Those in the group that had met Kurosaki Isshin before this could almost not believe it. This was such a different side of him, they had never seen it before.

"Um, could I see him before I go? It's just… I have a feeling that this whole thing won't sink in if I don't get to see it for myself."

This was a request that surprised all of the other people in the room. Renji wanting to see Ichigo?

"Sure. Come this way."

Kurosaki Isshin led Renji down the hallway to the room where he had been taking care of Ichigo.

"I'll leave you alone with him for a while," Isshin said as he backed out of the room. "Take your time."

"Okay."

It was a pretty solemn Renji that turned and looked at Ichigo. Ichigo was unnaturally pale, and he looked so small and frail where he lay on the hospital bed. Renji went up and stood next to the bed. Then he just stood there for a while and looked at Ichigo. He noticed that he breathed kind of shallow, as if even though he was unconscious he felt the pain that his body was in.

"Hey, dude. You should have been more careful with that Hollow. But who am I to scold you, huh? A. I was sent here to help you, and you being injured is obviously not helping you much. B. If you hadn't been there, and jumped before me, it probably would have been me laying in that bed instead of you…"

There Renji trailed of and fell silent. Once again he just stood there and looked at Ichigo.

"What I meant to say, I guess, is… get well soon. Wake up for us. Inue is really a wreck and Chad is quieter than usual, and you know that's not good. Just… get well."

With that Renji reached down and squeezed Ichigos hand once, and then turned around and went out of the room. He didn't see Ichigos hand closing, as if he was squeezing Renjis hand back…

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Two weeks had passed by, without Ichigo waking. Renji stopped by every day for at least an hour, or for as long as he could without having to go away to fight a Hollow. Inue, Ishida and Chad all took turns to come and visit too, but as they had to keep up with school on top of things they didn't have as much time as Renji (who didn't really care much if he flunked math or not).

Renji just sat by Ichigos side and talked to him. About the previous Hollow, or some messed up thing that happened in school, or the fact that Urahara still didn't feed him enough and still called him a free-loader even though he helped around the shop when he had time.

Then one day, when Renji was visiting as usual. He sat there telling him about last nights Hollow when he saw Ichigos hand move. Renji stopped talking, and reached over and took Ichigos hand in his own, slightly larger one.

"C'mon man. If you can hear me, squeeze my hand."


End file.
